New instance, new #introduction !
Hi #fediverse ! We’re the European Southern Observatory, and we design, build and operate ground-based telescopes.
One of them is our Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in #Chile. It will have a 39 m mirror, and its rotating enclosure will weigh 6100 tonnes, or about 700 mastodons!
We’re looking forward to chatting with all of you about #astronomy
And many thanks to @sebinthestars@astrodon.social for running our former instance!
📷
ESO/G. Vecchia
#Aurora over Europe!
We're currently experiencing a strong geomagnetic storm, which caused a stunning auroral display all over Europe last night. This time-lapse was captured by our colleague Stefan Ströbele over our headquarters in Garching near Munich.
📹
S. Ströbele/ESO
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #astrophotography #space #science
How do you cool house-sized instruments to –270°C… right in the middle of #Chile 's Atacama Desert?
That’s one of the challenges behind our Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), whose astronomical instruments (the largest ever built!) must stay ultra-cold to catch the faintest cosmic signals.
The solution: giant custom cryogenic facilities, built on a scale never attempted before, as so often with the ELT 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms194oA_xaw
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science #engineering
Let’s set the record straight!
The interstellar visitor #3IATLAS cruising through our Solar System is no #alien spaceship and won’t hit Earth.
Still, the buzz around it is far from unfounded. Learn the real science behind it from a comet expert in our latest episode of Chasing Starlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtiqLxfSiVI
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science
The laser guide star system of our Very Large Telescope (VLT) comes into action in this photo, tracking its orange beams all the way from Cerro Paranal to the skies. The lasers create artificial stars –seen here as a dot at the end of the beams– that allow us to measure and correct atmospheric turbulence, delivering sharp images.
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2532a/
📷 ESO/N. Schafer
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science
It's a go for manufacturing CUBES, a future instrument for our VLT.
The VLT's ultraviolet eye, CUBES will search for water in the asteroid belt & explore the UV cosmic background, among other scientific goals.
Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann25006/
📷 ESO/CUBES consortium
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science
A team of astronomers have used ALMA to observe the supergiant star DFK 52, and found a cloud of ejected material 1.4 light-years across!
DFK 52 is around 10-15 times more massive than the Sun. About 4000 years ago it went through an episode of extreme mass shedding, and then slowed down to its current rate. It has already lost 5-10% of its mass, for reasons still unkown 🤔
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2531a/
📷 ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/M. Siebert et al.
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophysics #space #science
New instance, new #introduction !
Hi #fediverse ! We’re the European Southern Observatory, and we design, build and operate ground-based telescopes.
One of them is our Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in #Chile. It will have a 39 m mirror, and its rotating enclosure will weigh 6100 tonnes, or about 700 mastodons!
We’re looking forward to chatting with all of you about #astronomy
And many thanks to @sebinthestars@astrodon.social for running our former instance!
📷 ESO/G. Vecchia
ESO